


Pictures In Exhibition

by insunshine, sinuous_curve



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-06
Updated: 2010-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-09 22:52:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insunshine/pseuds/insunshine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinuous_curve/pseuds/sinuous_curve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's known as The Panther, El Tigre in Europe, and it's kind of cool, having an alias. Spencer. Well. Spencer was known in all circles as The Invisible. With how often Jon's seen him in the past three years, the name fits to a T.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pictures In Exhibition

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by fantastic xthebackseatx.
> 
> This, my friends, was written for the utterly gorgeous wordsalone. She puts up with our crap, and she puts up with it with a smile. She loves us, and we wanted to write something special just for her.

Jon's cell rings at two in the morning.

He's in Prague, in a room on the twelfth floor of a high end hotel, sprawled and passed out on top of the comforter. There's a pair of sapphires worth somewhere in the neighborhood of two and half million dollars in his briefcase next to the desk and, funnily enough, a news story about himself playing softly on the TV in Czech.

"Fuckin' hell," Jon mumbles under his breath, groping out on the bedside table until his knuckles collide with the fucking phone, still loudly trilling whatever the hell song Pete picked to be his ringtone when Jon got the stupid thing.

Somehow, he manages to slip it open and punch at the green button until the call connects and the ringing blessedly cuts off. Yawning, Jon rolls onto his back and rakes his free hand through his hair, squinting through gritty eyes to catch the time in blue numbers on the clock. "It's two o' clock in the fucking morning, what the fucking fuck do you want?"

Pete chuckles, of course, because it's probably the middle of the afternoon in Chicago and, seriously, Jon is going to stab him in the eye, mob boss or no. "I have a job for you."

Jon lets out a long sigh and reaches over, snapping on the light and wincing at the sudden flare of brightness. "Make it fast. I have to be on a plane in seven hours and I will be so pissed if I don't get at least a little sleep before that."

"First, how does the current transaction stand?"

"Almost completed." Jon rolls his eyes. Pete has a thing for secret codes and a hard on for anything that sparkles and doesn't belong to him. "I just need to get the, ah, product home and it's yours."

Personally, Jon thinks their current code makes it sound more like they're dealing in cocaine instead of gems, but Pete pays the bills and signs the checks and Jon really isn't going to bitch too loudly. He's the best in the business, but Pete can be a little irrational when it comes to his things. "You said something about a job."

"Right." The sound of papers being straightened drifts over the line. Knowing Pete, it could actually be cards shuffling as Joe the bodyguard deals out the next hand of poker or go fish, but Jon appreciates the official touch. "The Clandestine Diamond is being displayed in the Chicago Museum of Natural History."

Jon blinks and shifts up a little straighter in bed.

"The Clandestine Diamond? Are you sure?" He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and unwittingly feels the lingering irritation at Pete's timing melt away.

The Clandestine Diamond, found in the early twenties in Brazil, about the size of a fist at that point, and later cut down and shaped into one of the most spectacular gems ever found. It's been hiding away in a private collection since the thirties and hasn't ever been displayed.

"I'm sure," Pete says and Jon can hear the smile in his voice. "I want it."

*

Jon gets into town late (or earlier, by his internal time-clock), and directs the cab straight to Pete's, even though he's sorely tempted to succumb to the call of his apartment and bed, and the sheets he'd put on fresh, right before he'd left.

It's something Spe - it's something that was instilled in him a long time ago, the idea that fresh sheets won't age, as long as a person is away, and will still be fresh when they get back. He hasn't been able to break the habit.

Pete's waiting out front when Jon's cab pulls up in front of The Estate, and when Jon gets out, reaching for his wallet to pay, Pete cuts him off, circling a hand around his wrist, stilling him.

"I got it man, you'd be crashing in your pad right now if it wasn't for me." Jon smiles, because Pete is what Jon's dad would call Good People, and they've been friends a long time. The fact that Pete is also sort of his boss, and happens to send him around the world, stealing things and putting himself in danger would probably hinder that thought process, but. What Jon's dad doesn't know won't kill him, and besides, it's not like, Jon's name is on the news every other night.

He's known as The Panther, El Tigre in Europe, and it's kind of cool, having an alias. Spencer. Well. Spencer was known in all circles as The Invisible. With how often Jon's seen him in the past three years, the name fits to a T.

"So," Jon says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and trying not to think about Spencer. He's never been all that good at not thinking about Spencer. "Specs? Notes? Schematics? How are we doing this? A la Entrapment or How to Steal a Million?"

Pete laughs, and the sound feels good ricocheting against Jon's skin. Jon turns to grab his bags out of the trunk, but the driver has apparently magicked them out and gone, leaving the two of them alone in the yard.

"Come on in, yeah? Lunchbox made dinner, and we didn't want to eat without you." Jon grins, reaching down to hitch his duffel over his shoulder, briefcase, as always, clutched close to his chest.

He nods, passing the case over to Pete in a quick slight of hand not befitting it's large size. Pete doesn't even look down, nimble fingers working over the combination. He pockets the gems, and if Jon hadn't been trained to look, he would have missed it.

He pats the briefcase once, twice, and then hands it back over. He smiles, something lit behind his eyes that wasn't, a second ago, and leads Jon into the house, hand on the small of his back. It's something Pete does pretty regularly. He's not a tall guy, but he likes to touch, and Jon can't count the times he's had to grit his teeth to keep from saying, "Stop, stop that. Spencer used to do that and every time you do it, it reminds me of him."

He doesn't. He can't.

"Lead the way, dude," is what he says, and the smile he's faking turns real once they climb the stairs into the house and he can smell Patrick's cooking.

*

"Do I smell spaghetti, Patrick Stump?"

Patrick's standing at the stove in flannel pajama pants with tattered cuffs and a thermal tee shirt that's just a little long in the arms. He's stirring a pot with steam floating out in a small cloud and a sauce pan bubbles on the burner beside it. "You do," Patrick says, shooting Pete a look. "Because God knows we can't eat at a normal time."

Jon grins, sliding into one of the kitchen chairs. "You're a good man, Patrick. A cliche, but a good man."

"Fuck you." Patrick flicks a noodle across the kitchen and it bounces off Jon's chest, falling to the floor for Hemingway to eagerly slurp up.

Pete slides up behind Patrick and presses an easy, open mouthed kiss to back of his neck. There's no explanation for how Patrick and Pete manage to make it work, through countless trials and FBI inquiries and all the less glamorous trappings of being the head of an organized crime syndicate, other than they looked at each other for the first time and just knew.

Which Jon envies. More or less.

Jon coughs, leaning over to scratch Hemmy's head. "I was told there was a job for me. Much as I love your cooking, Trick, I'm going to be pissed if you're keeping me from my bed for no good reason."

"You're so fucking impatient."

Pete reluctantly pushes off Patrick, with one last slap of his ass that has Patrick jamming his elbow hard enough into Pete's ribs for Jon to half think he heard something crack. Pete recovers with a grin, batting his eyelashes hard.

"Focus, Pete."

"Right." Pete sits down on the edge of the table, toeing at Hemmy's stomach. "The specs and all that have already been sent to your apartment. They should be waiting for you when you get there. I had Joe break in. Couldn't risk leaving them in the hallway for the neighbors to go poking around at 'em."

In all fairness, Jon lives in a loft that takes up a fourth of the floorspace on his floor of the building, so it's not like his doorway is a high traffic area. However, fighting with Pete is an exercise in futility, so he lets it go. "You know, I could always just make you a key."

"There's no fun in that."

Ladies and gentlemen, the Wentz logic.

"Anyway." Jon drums his fingers on his knee. He's exhausted, but the promise of a job has his skin beginning to thrum with a kind of electric buzz. It's settled just beneath the surface, exactly where he likes it.

Pete shrugs. "I'll leave the details to you. Do what you do best, Johnny boy." He pauses long enough to glance at Patrick. Their eyes meet, exchanging a look that Jon can see but not interpret, and damned if that doesn't make him nervous.

"What?"

"Nothing." Pete grins the too bright, too much grin he reserves for the feds and when he's lying to friends. "Just. You'd do better with a second man on this, is all."

The insinuation lands with a dull thud in the middle of the room and suddenly Jon isn't hungry anymore.

He stands, brushing off his jeans. "I'm just." He stops, running a hand over his face. "I'm going home."

*

The thing about Chicago is that it's much more small town-like than one would assume. The same people frequent the same places, and more often than not, they're more gossipy than high schoolers. Jon loves his friends, and he appreciates them, but after three years, the pitying glances and pats on the back have gone from accepted, to tolerable and have now settled on condescending.

He gets it. "I get it, okay?" He says, purposefully not looking Travis in the eye as he yanks his sweatpants up, not bothering to try to look through the wreckage for his boxers. They'll turn up eventually.

Travis nods, and continues on nodding, and this thing that he's doing? This thing where he's all calm and cool and sated and boneless? It's not exactly something Jon appreciates. He says as much, stretching his arms up high above his head. Travis just laughs. Jon can't say he's surprised.

"Is that all you're going to do?" He's tugging on the ends of his hair, but he can still see Travis through his bangs, lounged back, still smiling.

"You don't want people to comfort you. You don't want anyone to help. You're the big, bad Panther, am I right?" Jon flushes, even though he doesn't mean to, and for a second, he feels like a kid instead of an international man of mystery.

"Johnny, you were fucked after he left," Jon winces, but Travis doesn't stop. The words may be harsh, but his tone isn't. "But, man, you were fucked when he was here, too. That boy always messed with your head." Jon looks away.

It's easier. It's easier, looking away and trying to pretend like the words of protest, the defense hadn't just jumped to his lips on time.

"It's been three years, Trav," is all he manages to come up with, and he doesn't expect it, but Travis reaches his arms out, grabbing Jon at the middle and pulling him back, pressing their bodies together.

"It's not like there's a statute of limitations on how you long you love somebody," Jon tries to squirm free, but Travis won't let him.

"Quit," Jon mumbles. Travis only lets go once Jon's stopped trying to protest, arms going slack, unmoving. Jon can feel him, hard but not insistent against the small of his back. He wonders if Travis wants to, again, if he --

"Go get us coffee, yeah?" Travis says, arching his back enough so that he can press a sloppy kiss to Jon's temple. "Then we'll figure out how to fucking rob the Metropolitan Museum of Art and get PWeezy his fucking diamond."

"You'd really help?" He's trying not to sound hopeful and disappointed all in the same breath. It would be so, so much easier to go in with a cover, to know, with absolute certainty, that someone else had his back. He likes the risk, though. Likes knowing anything could happen, that he could die, on a moment's notice, and no one would be able to stop it. "Extra foam, no whip, right?" He asks once he's wrangled on a tee shirt and shoved his feet into flip-flops.

Travis just smiles.

*

There's a coffee shop a block down the street from Travis's apartment that, remarkably, isn't a Starbucks, and Jon heads that way, hands stuffed into the pocket of one of Travis's hoodies, grabbed off the back of couch on his way out.

It's cool, the seasons beginning to ease into fall, and Jon keeps his hands tucked down in his pockets as he walks, flip flops slapping against the pavement. It's earlier than he thought when he rolled off the mattress. His thoughts keep flipping around, Spencer to the diamond to Spencer to Pete to Spencer to Spencer, Spencer, Spencer like a stupid record stuck on repeat.

Fuck Travis's zen and wisdom up the ass with a cactus and no lube.

Jon pushes through the door to the coffee shop with an annoyed shake of his head, like the gesture will be enough to dislodge Spencer when three years of actively beating his forehead against any hard surface didn't. The line is beginning to stack up with morning business people searching for their caffeine shot before trudging off to work and Jon grins, a little, hiking his sweatpants higher up on his hips and pulling his fingers into the cuffs of his hoodie.

He has a day job, but it's a day job gotten through Pete, so showing is more of an option than a necessity and planning his real jobs ranks higher on the priority totem pole.

Two people back in line from the girl behind the counter, a cute thing with chopsticks stuck through her red hair who knows Jon by sight and tends to bat her eyelashes whenever he comes in, Jon starts rooting in his pocket for the ten he snaked from Travis wallet and, of course, ends up dumping what looks like twelve dollars worth of change on the floor.

"Shit."

Jon drops to his knees at the same time as whoever was standing behind him and they both start gathering the scattered nickels and dimes into their palms.

In retrospect, it's one of the most cliche moments of Jon's life, looking up to just say thanks.

He's got change spilling out from between his fingers and he's wearing sweats with nothing underneath them, a hoodie two sizes too big, and the ratty tee shirt he wore the night Spencer finally lost patience and slammed the door behind him. El Tigre is a sloppy mess.

Spencer, kneeling in a gray suit and blue button down, is not.

"Spencer." Jon breathes out the word unintentionally, change and coffee and Travis and every fucking thing forgotten because Spencer is six inches from his face and the world is warping.

"Jesus fuck." Spencer's eyes go round.

Jon can't help but catalog the changes made in three years; his hair is grown out, brushing at his chin, and he's grown a beard, which normally would have made Jon fucking die laughing, but somehow works. He's a got leather bag slung over one shoulder and he looks so incredibly straight laced Jon feels like he's gone tripping into the wrong world.

"What are you doing here?"

*

Jon doesn't want coffee anymore. He doesn't want to be standing in this stupid coffee shop in his stupid yellow tee shirt (which Spencer hadn't remembered, if the look on his face had been any indication), and he most certainly doesn't want to be doing it with Spencer.

"Spence?" Someone from behind them asks, and when he touches the back of Spencer's elbow, helping him up, Jon sees a color most often compared to red.

The guy, whoever he is, is what finally does it. Spencer ducks his head, and even though there are fewer bits of skin viewable there, Jon knows that look, he knows that face. Spencer's blushing. Jon wonders if he's embarrassed to be seen with him, or if this would happen with any ragamuffin looking guy on the street.

For his sanity, Jon prays it's the first. His brain won't be able to cope with it if Spencer's changed that much, if Spencer doesn't laugh the way he used to and is able now, to pass a homeless person on the street without tipping the contents of his wallet inside their collection cup.

"Ryland," Spencer says, and Jon's palms itch where he's stuffed them back in his pockets. He's not a particularly violent guy, has never understood the lure of fists over words, but in this moment, standing in this stupid coffee shop in the stupid tee shirt he's been wearing for the past three years, holding onto some small piece of Spencer, Jon wants to hit him.

He knows about a hundred different ways to kill a man, and more variations to them than he can count on both hands. He could do it, he has done it, and if it would get him Spencer back, Jon's pretty sure he would do anything.

"Hi," Jon says, and some small part of him delights in the fact that Spencer flinches. It's not much, but it's all he's got. "I'm Jon, Jon Walker. Spencer and I are really old friends." He wraps an arm around Spencer's shoulders, just proving a point, and then loses his breath entirely when his fingers accidentally brush skin at Spencer's neck. He drops his hand immediately, and can't look Spencer in the face. "We um," he says. "We used to work together."

Ryland, or the guy Jon is assuming is Ryland, smiles big and bright, leaning a hand in to shake. Jon doesn't know why he does it, but he shakes with his left. The tips of the fingers on his right hand are tingling, and Jon doesn't want to lose that sensation, not if he can help it.

"Oh," Ryland says, still smiling. "Did you work at the museum too?"

*

Spencer says, "Ryland, hon, will you excuse us for a second?" and Jon can't even rage at the pet name because he's still stuttering behind the revelation that Spencer Smith, The fucking Invisible is working in a museum.

Jon stumbles after him and the pathetic part is that the part of his mind not trying to reconcile a square peg somehow legitimately sliding itself into a circular hole, is doing little flips of glee that Spencer's fingers are wrapped tight around his wrist. It's weirdly familiar and achingly strange in the same moment and Christ, somehow Jon's life went veering into the Twilight Zone when he wasn't paying attention.

They burst out onto the street, back into the gray morning and Jon shivers a little as Spencer pushes him up against the brick side of the building, ducking his head down low.

"A museum," Jon bursts out, he can't help it. "You work in a fucking museum?"

Spots of pink appear high on Spencer's cheeks and he raises his chin, defiant, pulling his hand back and crossing his arms tight over his chest. "Yes, I work in a museum. It's amazing and interesting and, best of all, legal."

"And what do you do in this museum?"

Against all odds, Spencer's blush deepens and his chin drops. It's a rare moment of embarrassment and Jon drinks it in. "I. I'm coordinating their hall of gems."

It's such a wrong move, but Jon can't help it.

He bursts out laughing.

"Spencer," he says. "Spencer, you are a jewel thief."

"Was," Spencer snaps, pushing even closer into Jon's personal space. He smells the same, something warm and vaguely spicy. "I was ... that. Now I'm not."

It's funny, is what it is. It's funny because Jon knew that Spencer went straight after the last job that almost never was and probably should never have been. He never bothered asking what straight entailed and, considering how bad things got in the immediate aftermath, Jon's fairly certain no one would have been willing to tell him, even if he had asked.

"That's priceless," Jon says, shaking his head, and it maybe comes out a little sharper than he intended.

Spencer's eyes narrow and a veneer of anger that Jon tried very hard to forget about slides over them. "No, actually, it's everything I ever wanted. I have a job, a good job that pays the bills and is interesting and legal and doesn't require me running all over the fucking world at a moment's notice. I have a house and a dog and a life and a fiance."

The word rings between them, damning, and Spencer pulls him bottom lip between his teeth, staring hard at Jon, like he wants the comment, the pronouncement, the betrayal.

Jon really wants to hit something.

"I need your help on a job," he says instead.

The emotions that flash across Spencer's face are indescribable and Jon finds himself remembering that Spencer knows a hundred ways to kill a man with every day objects, too. Jon expects a fist in his face, maybe the bones in his nose crunching to splinters.

He doesn't expect Spencer's hands fisting in his collar and a kiss hard enough to bruise.

*

Jon's familiar with Spencer's mouth. It's been three years, three years of nameless, faceless people, three years of fucking and being fucked, three years, but the warm, wet heat of Spencer's mouth hasn't changed.

Jon's the one pressed against the wall, and they aren't near the plate-glass doorway, so even if Ryland were looking, he wouldn't be able to see the way their bodies aren't touching except for their mouths, how even Spencer's hand on the collar of his shirt has dropped away, both palms pressed against the brick wall on either side of Jon's head, bracketing him in.

Spencer keeps making these tiny little noises Jon doesn't recognize, noises that he didn't make three years ago, and Jon wants to pull him in, wants to cling, but he can't, hands hanging loose by his sides. Jon does what he can, he bites, just softly, but hard enough that Spencer moans into his mouth.

When he pulls away, he looks ravaged, and Jon's heart is beating so fast he's not positive it won't beat straight out of his chest.

"Spence," he says, and he's breathing so, so hard. Spencer closes his eyes, and then slowly, deliberately, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"That didn't happen," he says, and something angry and vicious twists in Jon's chest. He nods though, because Spencer's breathing heavy too. "I'm happy," he says, voice firmer than it had been, and Jon closes his eyes, because it sounds true.

He really hates that it sounds true.

"That's great, Spence," Jon says, because if Spencer's happy, if this guy, this Ryland guy is making him happy, well then. Well, then Jon will just have to refrain from killing him. He says as much, to make Spencer smile, but it doesn't exactly work that way.

He takes a step away, and his suit is rumpled. Jon closes his eyes, tipping his head back against the brick of the building, breathing in and out. He can feel Spencer watching him and wishes he couldn't.

"You said something about," Spencer coughs, and it covers the words a job. Jon wonders what punctuation was supposed to be at the end of that sentence.

"Yeah," Jon says, eyes still closed. "Pete wants the Clandestine diamond." Spencer hisses, and Jon wonders if it's because he wants it too or because he's horrified. When he opens his eyes, Spencer's eyes are still blown, and he's biting down so hard on his lip it's starting to bleed. Jon has a feeling it's a mix between the two.

"That's at the museum," Spencer whispers, voice low and gruffer than it was a minute ago, reverent. "I. It's impossible to break into, Jon, you can't -- "

Jon clears his throat and says the words he's been practicing in the mirror since yesterday. He clears his throat again and says, "That's why I need you."

"Oh," Spencer says, taking another step away. He'd been edging away already, and Jon reminds himself that Spencer already left him once, this shouldn't hurt anywhere near as much. "I won't." He says. Jon nods, once, and then again, because it's fine. He's spent the past three years going on jobs without Spencer. He can do it again, easy. It'll be fine.

"I'll see you around, yeah, Spencer Smith?" Jon knows his voice is wavering, but he can't help it. If he keeps his head ducked he's fairly certain Spencer won't be able to see the wetness around his eyes. "Tell your fiance it was nice to meet him."

He can see Spencer nod out of the corner of his eye, and he's almost down the street, he's almost free, when Spencer calls out, "Jon?"

Jon stops. "Yeah?" He asks, not turning around. He can't. He's stopped breathing, but Spencer doesn't need to know that.

"Have you." Spencer stops, and Jon can hear how much the words are costing him. "Are you still in that apartment?" Jon's eyes slide shut of their own volition, and he remembers that Spencer picked out his apartment, remembers Spencer laughing and hauling shit and making it their home. He remembers Spencer's cold, emotionless eyes and the way he'd slammed the door when he'd left. How he hadn't looked back.

"Yeah," he says, voice lower than it had been. Spencer seems to take it though, seems to understand the words, because he says,

"I'll see you tonight. Seven?"

*

Jon definitely doesn't forget he was getting coffee and he absolutely doesn't forget to go back to Travis's apartment until he's already halfway back to his. That means that Spencer can still snake under his skin and Jon's spent far too long convincing people he's okay for that to be the truth.

Travis calls him as he's waiting at a crosswalk. "Did you get lost, Johnny?"

"I." Jon would beat his head against the sidewalk if it wouldn't draw stares. "I got kidnapped?"

"Damn." Travis chuckles low and somehow knowing. "Don't look at me for bail. I'm a poor sonuvabitch, Walker. I'll let Pete know you might be needing an advance on that next job." He pauses and Jon presses the heel of his hand to his eye, trying to decide whether full disclosure is in anyone's best interest. "I want to know why you split?"

The crossing sign flashes WALK and Jon's pushed into the tide of street traffic. "I'll tell you all the sordid details later," he finally says, feeling a little like an ass, but he can still taste Spencer and it's not his fault.

Jon definitely doesn't spend an hour in the shower, scrubbing himself down with the poofy thing Spencer bought as a joke one year for Christmas and the bottle of spicy bodywash Spencer left behind in his grand exodus. It's almost empty and the bottle squelches when Jon pours the last bit onto his skin.

It's a little poetic, if personal hygiene is actually allowed to be meaningful.

Standing in front of the closet, still half stocked with skinny jeans and brightly colored tee shirts Jon never had the heart to bag up, his fingers linger over some of his nicer, higher end suits, for those jobs when part of his cover requires that he plays at being rich and powerful.

He bites his lip. If he goes that way Spencer will know he expended unnecessary effort and, thus, that Jon cares and fuck if that's going to be the case.

There's a pair of jeans, falling apart at the seams, with holes in the knees and green paint spattered across the thighs from when they painted the living room folded on the top shelf and Jon slides into them, stomach twisting. He shouldn't have asked Spencer for help, inside contact or no. He's an idiot and an asshole.

The doorbell rings at five to seven and Jon maybe brewed Spencer's favorite coffee.

Whatever. He has to accept that he's a little desperate or risk falling into total self denial.

"Hey." Jon pulls open the door and it's so stupid, but his breath does that annoying thing where it catches in his chest and squeezes tight around his heart.

Spencer's got on soft sweatpants that hang low on his hips and pool around his feet. His tee shirt is light blue, with some kind of squiggle shit going on in the bottom corner that might or might not bare the faint sparkle of old glitter that's been stripped off by repeated washings.

"Hi," he says, arms folded across his chest.

There's a tenseness to line of his shoulders that makes Jon want to smack himself, but that's an old urge. He's learned to live with it. Instead, he forces a smile and steps back. "I've got coffee brewing and specs on the table. Let's do this."

*

Jon spends a lot of the night pretending not to watch Spencer pretending that he's not looking around the apartment. It hasn't changed as much as Jon would have expected it to. His things are gone, which makes sense, but it's not like Jon's made much effort to replace them with things of his own.

He's not home as often as he was when he and Spencer were together, but then again, when they were together, his home was transportable. His home was Spencer.

Spencer sits at the breakfast bar, that now only has two stools (they'd bought the place together, furnished it together, and had split almost everything half way. Spencer had taken two stools, leaving Jon with a sad and mismatched pair that missed their true mates), and pours over the specs, shoulders hunched. There's a chipped mug in front of him with coffee he's barely touched, and Jon's shifting from foot to foot, trying to figure out if sitting means he's too close.

"This is good work," Spencer says, stretching his arms up high above his head. He has a beard, and no matter how many times Jon sees him, that will never not a moment of disconnection. This is not his Spencer. It's actually not that hard a concept to grasp.

"It's not mine," Jon says, as if clarification is necessary. He's never been good at the little details, could never be organized enough to pull of intel like this. Spencer's the information man, he always has been. "Travis got it all organized, man. He's the awesome one, I'm just the messenger."

Spencer rolls his eyes, which Jon doesn't understand, then says, "Well, if Travis did them," like that's supposed to make some kind of sense.

Jon doesn't know what makes him do it, what makes his fists clench at his sides. "Is there some sort of problem, Spencer?" His voice is low, gruff and menacing, and he has no fucking idea what's going on right now.

"Just because you're fucking the guy who made these, doesn't mean that they're safe. What if you," his voice cracks, and his eyes go huge, and Jon has no idea what the hell he's seeing, but it makes something warm bloom in his chest. Spencer swallows, and after a moment, the blush on his cheeks has disappeared entirely. "What if we were to use these blueprints, these directions and there's a flaw? What if." He pauses, closing his eyes again, breathing in and out.

"How did you," he stops too, and it feels like they're talking about something bigger than they are. Something bigger than the both of them. "Spence, Travis is a professional. You know him. He's good people."

Spencer sneers and it twists his face, makes it almost ugly in contrast to the sheer beauty there most of the time. "Was he good people when we were together, too?"

Jon blinks, and then he feels sick to his stomach straight away. It feels like something's knocked straight into his chest, and he blinks again, tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes. "Spence," he says, but it doesn't come out as a word.

Spencer looks almost ashamed when he looks up at him, and Jon's suddenly so glad he's not sitting, so glad that Spencer has to look up. The knowledge that Spencer's looking is the only thing that keeps Jon standing. He has to grip onto the counter to prevent his knees from giving out, he has to.

"I thought," Spencer mumbles, head ducked again, and he's gripping the counter too, knuckles white. "It seemed. It's not like I care, Jon." He holds up his left hand, and Jon doesn't miss the way the plain gold band glints in the light. His grip on the counter tightens.

"It was a long time ago," Jon offers, a little too late to be considered polite in social circles, but he and Spencer have never been polite with each other. It was never necessary. Spencer might have gone and changed the rules, but Jon remembers.

Spencer nods. "We should probably memorize these, and then devise two or three strategies right away, before we decide on an actual game plan," he says, and then he's leaning forward again, exposing an inch of skin from where his hoodie doesn't exactly meet his sweats.

Jon closes his eyes and very definitely doesn't think about what the skin there tastes like.

*

 

A week later they have a rough plan, shaped around the fact that Spencer knows the building inside and out after three years, but is adamantly opposed to using the security codes because it runs the risk of drawing far too much attention to those who would have those codes. Spencer included.

"You told Pete I'm on this," Spencer says, leaning on his elbows over a schematic of the security system, cap of a blue pen caught between his teeth. "Right?"

Jon blushes to Spencer's back, holding refilled mugs of coffee and tries not to stutter and smack his palm to his forehead. He talks to Pete at least once a day, through their veiled code of packages and clients and usually ends up calling Patrick later just to make sure he translated correctly and doesn't end up in Peru when he should be in Taiwan.

"Yeah," Jon says, swallowing hard. "Of course I did."

Spencer looks up, eyebrow raised, and it's both funny and uncomfortable that they've already managed to fall into the old patterns of speaking through gesture and communicating silently. Jon ducks his head and sighs, setting one of the mugs down. "I'll tell him tomorrow."

"Right." Spencer rolls his eyes and Jon almost, almost, cuffs him on the back of his head.

He doesn't.

They're syncing up, but they're not familiar and Jon hates that Spencer's new nervous habit is to twist the pretty little glittering band around his finger.

It's a little after midnight when Spencer finally arches his back and says he needs to get home. It's Sunday night and, right, he has to go back to being respectable in the morning. Jon wants to ask how he does it, goes through his day cataloging gems and arranging them on black velvet, knowing that in a month he'll be taking one.

"See you tomorrow," Jon says as Spencer leaves. Spencer says nothing, just raises his hand distractedly. He's got his phone out and Jon catches a faint, "Hey, honey," as the door closes behind him.

Jon's leaning against the back of the couch with Dylan curled up in a little ball by his hip. It's one of the stupider things that happened when he and Spencer broke apart, but Jon kept the cat and Spencer took Banta the dog and sometimes Jon thinks the animals are pining just as much as the humans.

"Dyl," Jon says, scratching between his ears. "I fucking hate Ryland fucking whatever his last name is and I want him to have his fucking balls cut off with a fucking rusty spoon before he fucking dies in a fucking fire."

Dylan meows.

"Yeah, yeah," Jon sighs. "I'll fucking call Pete."

His phone's on the charger in the kitchen, sitting tucked between the toaster and microwave. The tiles are cool beneath his feet and Jon shivers a little, hauling himself up onto the counter as he flips his phone open and punches in speed dial two.

Pete ranks higher than his mom. Jon doesn't tell her this.

"Hey, Jon Walker." Pete sounds loose and sated and Jon really, really doesn't want to picture what particular activities probably got him to that point. "What's up?"

Jon shifts, drumming his fingers on the counter top. "Travis isn't going to be with me on the Clan job."

Pete sucks in a breath and Jon can sense the rising tirade.

"Spencer is."

The beat of silence actually extends vastly beyond the confines of a beat. Jon's mouth goes dry and he doesn't know why his stomach contorts in on itself. Maybe...maybe it's that, until this moment, Spencer's been only his. Sharing has never been Jon's strong suit.

"Fuck." Pete exhales the word and Jon thinks amen. "Are you. Fuck. Are you sure that's a good idea?"

No. Hell no.

"Of course," Jon says and it's just a white lie.

*

Jon tries really, really hard not to abuse the new privileges he has now, now that he has Spencer's new cell phone number, now that he sees Spencer on a daily basis, now that Spencer smiles at him from time to time.

He can't sleep though, and when he pads into the den, he's surprised to see Dylan curled up in front of the TV, the pale blue light casting shadows over his fur. Jon doesn't remember leaving the TV on, but he's also fairly positive the cat doesn't know how to use the DVR remote. It takes him a few minutes to recognize the program that's on, but when he does, it makes something sharp cut through his chest.

The first night in their new apartment (the second of two together, though they'd barely spent any time in the first), all they'd put together was the TV (Spencer had huge, baby blue eyes, and he used his wiles to convince Jon that they really, really needed to DVR the Dynasty marathon on SoapNet, it was imperative to his heath, honest). They'd had sleeping bags that they'd pushed together, and Spencer's mouth was warm as he pressed his face into Jon's stomach.

That's when they'd first seen it, a wrong turn and too many clicks on the up arrow key, and they'd landed on the Discovery channel, mid-way through one of the worst documentaries either of them had ever seen.

It was like a train wreck; a narrator with a terrible voice, boom mikes in every live shot, and choppy shots of a murky sea with no elephant seals in sight.

They'd been instantly hooked.

It's on now, this documentary Jon hasn't seen in years, not since Spencer left, although Jon hasn't been exactly looking for it. He doesn't mean to text Spencer, hasn't even realized that he's typed out, you know I haven't seen this shit in years?

He sends it without thinking about it. Either Spencer will see it and respond, or he'll see it and he won't. Jon has no control over what Spencer does. He never has. An hour later, when Jon's eyes are heavy, his phone buzzes against his thigh, and Jon jolts up on the couch, jumping halfway out of his skin.

It's probably nothing. It's probably Pete, Pete texts him roughly seven hundred times a day, even more when he's on a job, and more than that still, when it's a job this big. Jon's trying to keep his breathing steady, but even Dylan is looking at him funny.

He flips his phone open, and his stomach drops to his knees. There's a text from Spencer. can u believe they still play it?

Jon's stomach twists, and he closes his eyes. It's not exactly something that's easily text-back-able, but he does anyway, sending, elephant seals are so INTERESTING. you'd think they'd make a better one.

Spencer doesn't respond right away, not that Jon is precisely surprised. The documentary ends, and like always, Jon means to sit up and catch the narrator's name, but he's frozen to the spot, afraid that if he moves, he'll lose whatever luck he has in getting to talk to Spencer, like there's some sort of magic spell, rooting him to the spot.

Spencer texts, i always forget to catch his name, a few minutes later. i like to pretend it's like, nigel or sumshit.

Jon snorts, and something stupid eases in his chest. nigel is a very distinguished name, he texts. you sure he deserves it?

Spencer doesn't respond. Spencer doesn't respond, and Jon waits up an extra two hours, waiting to see if he will. A new message never comes.

*

Funny story; right after Spencer left, Jon went on a bender that spanned three days and half the bars and liquor stores in the city and only ended when Patrick caught up with him ranting at a bartender in a seedy little dive and hustled him into a car waiting to take them both back to Pete's. Jon likes alcohol, he likes the ease it can inspire and the temporary escape it can provide from life's smaller ills.

Spencer hadn't replied back when Jon woke up, hadn't replied as Jon finished up a greasy burger from the local diner for lunch, hadn't replied as Jon paced a line between the kitchen counter and the back of the couch.

Fuck him.

They have a standing appointment, as Spencer terms it, more for Ryland's benefit, Jon assumes, than either of theirs, at seven. At five thirty, Jon shrugs on his battered jacket, shoves his keys and wallet into his pocket and leaves, pointedly locking the door.

It's dark and cool, almost cold, outside as Jon walks, tracing a familiar path two blocks down and three blocks over to a dark, dank, skeevy little place tucked in an alleyway called Butcher's. There's nothing glossy about it, nothing that glimmers and shines; hell, there's not even a neon sign, just the name slapped on the exposed brick above the door in haphazard splashes of fading gray paint.

Jon slips in and nods at Butcher, standing behind the bar. They've known each other forever and a day, or maybe since Jon's aborted attempt at college.

He slides onto a stool and accepts the whiskey Butcher hands him with a few tipped fingers of thanks. It burns going down and settles in his stomach, easing outward from there in little warm waves. Jon hunches his shoulders in and sighs. Fuck life. Fuck people. Fuck Spencer.

Jon isn't a fool and he doesn't often make a point of deluding himself, but goddamnit. Spencer defies all convention and conviction; he's always made Jon feel like he was in over his head and Jon was stupid enough to let himself get settled back into the sensation of having him. Which is dumb. Because Spencer is engaged and working in a museum.

He's fucking happy.

"Fucking cheers," Jon mumbles to himself, raising his glass in solitary toast and knocks back the rest of it. It's his third or maybe fifth or twelfth. At some point he stopped counting, but Butcher hasn't cut him off yet, isn't even giving him looks, so he's fine. Dandy, in fact.

From the corner of his eye, as he sets the glass back down on the counter with an only mildly unsteady hand, he catches sight of a guy with black rimmed eyes and bitten lips staring at him.

Openly. Invitingly.

Jon cocks his head to the side and catches the kid's eye. He's on the younger side of his twenties, probably, with hair that falls over his eyes and a shirt that's intentionally tight across the soft round of his stomach, underneath a leather jacket. It's green, with artistic splatters down from the collar and he's wearing jeans stretched tight around his hips.

"Hey," Jon says and the kid smiles.

"Hi."

*

In the morning, the kid is gone, but then, he'd left the night before. Jon doesn't expect to see him again. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling and wonders just how long it had taken after the kid left for him to come. On good nights, it's a half an hour, one of Spencer's forgotten tee shirts pressed to his nose, his mouth, eyes closed and Spencer's name on his lips. On bad nights, he doesn't come at all.

He swings his feet over the edge, and his thighs hurt with an orgasm that almost was. He's naked, which makes walking into the shower easier, and he comes quick with the water pounding against the tiles.

Jon spends most of his days away from the apartment, skin usually thrumming in anticipation of getting to see Spencer. He doesn't leave now. He settles on the couch, beer resting on his stomach even though it's barely noon, and flips on the TV, prepared for an afternoon spent watching mind numbing cartoons or various sporting events.

Instead, what he gets is an eyeful of the stupid elephant seal documentary, and a promise on the bottom of the screen for more like it to come.

Jon's almost positive that today's going to be a wash. He doesn't have the heart to change the channel, even though he wants to throw the freaking remote at the television and never think about elephant seals ever again.

Hours must pass, because the next time Jon looks up, the sky has darkened, and the number flashing on his desk says five-thirty. Jon has no idea where the majority of the day has gone.

When the clock hits six, he gets up, throws away the mountain of beer bottles that have collected on his coffee table and wipes the crumbs off the legs of his sweats. He grabs another beer, and settles against the arm of the couch, flipping open a book, and turning the pages without retaining any of the information.

At seven exactly, a knock sounds, and Jon's stomach seizes up, but he calls out a hasty, "Come on in, door's open," because he's not sure his legs will carry him.

Spencer pokes his head in, looking vaguely contrite, and says, "Hey," with his head ducked. He's as pretty as ever, which Jon wishes he didn't notice.

"Hey," he says, and moves to put his book down. He leans over a little too far, and loses his balance, and Spencer's arms are around his stomach before he can even flail around at all.

"Hey," Spencer says, voice soft. "Hey, you okay? You seem a little unsteady." Jon nods and then shakes his head, and Spencer's hands are so warm on his hips. They haven't been this close since the first day they saw each other again, and even then, it wasn't like this.

Spencer goes to move his hands, but Jon moans, when he does. He doesn't know why, he doesn't know why Spencer hadn't moved right away, why Spencer had touched him at all in the first place, but he had and he is, and Jon's skin is heating up from the outside in.

"I'm fine," Jon says, but he's moving close. It's like he can't stop himself, and his voice is barely anything but sound.

"You're drunk," Spencer mumbles, and he's leaning in too, but he's not looking in Jon's eyes. He won't. His palms are running haphazardly up and down Jon's side, and Jon nods, because it's true.

"You make." He stops, because his tongue is loose, and his brain is funny, and there's just so much Spencer doesn't know. "Christ, Spence, I can't come."

Spencer blinks, eyes huge. "You can't come to what?"

Jon holds back a laugh, but just barely, and it's not a pretty sound. "I can't." He gestures down towards his sweats. "I can't come. I can only." He stops again, because no one in the world knows this, except for him, and now Spencer. "I can only, when I think of you." He shrugs. "You're under my skin, Spence. You always have been."

Spencer starts to pull away, but Jon leans back against the couch, trapping Spencer's arm there. It's a sloppy move, but Spencer stays.

"What about that guy?" He asks, and Jon blinks. He tips his head to the side, swallowing once, then again, and straights again.

"What guy?"

Spencer ducks his head, cheeks flushing. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."

*

Jon wants to push the issues, or rather, he feels he should, but he's known Spencer long enough to tell when he's retreated into himself so far there's no use trying. He only stays an hour that night and Spencer spends it hunched over the schematics of the air ducts for the floor the Clandestine Diamond is will be displayed on while Jon sits on the couch, drinking black coffee and trying to breathe.

"I have to go," Spencer says, capping his pen.

"Okay." Jon's words feel just to the left of slurred coming off his tongue and he hates that, more than he ever would have thought.

Back in the day they always had a rule, however unspoken, that they made an effort to stay as sharp as possible in the days leading up to a job, no matter how big or small. It was less of an effort on Spencer's part, who tended to avoid Jon's proclivity for Red Bull and wine, and Jon feels like he's failed.

"We have a week to get this thing together," Spencer says and he keeps his eyes away from Jon's face, hands slid into his pockets. "We'll be fine."

His voice lacks faith, conviction, and Jon can only nod.

The rest of the week passes in a strange mixture of too fast and too slow.

Jon spends a few halting minutes on the phone with Pete, dancing around him asking whether or not this job is going to implode because Spencer and Jon should never have gotten back together, after falling apart very nearly sent them spinning into the void. Jon paces the kitchen, phone tucked between his hear and shoulder, offering up one word answers that leave Pete finally clicking off with an annoyed sigh.

Dylan twines around Jon's ankles, purring softly and Jon toes him gently in the ribs. "We could always run away to Tahiti," Jon offers and Dylan butts his head along Jon's calf.

Travis calls the day before, as Jon's gathering up his gear and checking it again and again. "You all set and ready to go?"

"Ready steady," Jon says with a crooked half smile to the room. It's mid afternoon and Spencer left him a message at some ungodly hour of the morning saying that he'd be a little late for their last meeting before they have to do the job. "Want to tag along?"

"Nah." Travis chuckles. "I'm gonna sit back and enjoy watching this one."

"Fuck you."

"You wish."

Travis wishes him good luck and Jon wonders if he has plans to call Spencer too. It's another old ritual lost in limbo and it makes Jon's skin itch.

*

The day of the job, Jon thinks fuck it and takes the L down to the museum, buys a ticket, and follows the neatly printed signs to the newly opened Hall of Gems.

He's sitting there for hours, he thinks, when his cell buzzes against his thigh, a message from Spencer that says, where r u?

Jon doesn't bother responding. Spencer works here, they'll bump into each other soon enough. Jon has his headphones in, watching the people, watching the diamond, with Jose Gonzales on repeat. He closes his eyes, and he doesn't think he's fallen asleep until he blinks his eyes open, and there's something blocking his light. Something that's vaguely Spencer-shaped.

Spencer's mouth is moving, but Jon's headphones are still in and he doesn't understand. Spencer's in a suit, because he's on duty, and just looking at him makes Jon's head hurt, and his chest tighten. It's always been that way, but it's worse, now, knowing the things he can't have, knowing just how much he's missing.

Jon's contemplating closing his eyes again. He wonders if Spencer's even noticed he has his headphones in. Spencer apparently has, because he reaches forward just enough that Jon can see the flecks of gold in his eyes, and yanks on the cord.

"You had these in that whole time, didn't you?" Jon doesn't bother answering. There are faint strains of the music pouring out from the earbuds, and he can still feel the beat pulsing through him. "Jon?" Spencer's voice is taut and thin, and when Jon blinks up at him, really looking, he's almost shocked to see how fragile Spencer looks, barely held together, despite the pressed suit, despite the winning eyes and the charming smile.

"Yeah, you know. Prepping for the big day." Something flickers in Spencer's eyes, but it's been too long, and Jon's too tired to try and figure out what it means.

"Are you getting married?" He asks, and Jon snorts, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. Spencer manages something that would pass for a smile if Jon didn't know him so well.

"No," Jon says, trying to smile back. "No one'll have me." Spencer makes a noise, low in his throat, but Jon can't discern it, Spencer's not even looking at him.

"I can't imagine what day is bigger than that," Spencer mumbles, as if speaking from a script. That thing twists in Jon's gut again, that ugly, bitter thing that makes him realize every second of every day is a waste if it isn't spent with Spencer. It's not like he didn't know that already. "Hey," he says after a minute, maybe two, of the two of them just standing there, trying not to stare at each other.

Jon says, "Yeah?" and watches as Spencer chews on his bottom lip, spreading droplets of blood from one side to the other.

"I have my break in a few minutes," he edges out the words in a rush, as if they're too wide, too much for his mouth to handle. "I don't know if you're busy, but maybe we could," he pauses, waving his hand around in the universal motion for talk about that jewel heist we're planning. "I mean, I have an office."

Jon wonders what Spencer must have done, in his three years there to warrant an office. Spencer starts to walk away, and Jon isn't stupid, he follows.

*

Spencer's office sits tucked in the back of the museum's clerical spaces, at the end of a long, wide, dusty hallway lined with similar boxes. Each door has a neat nameplate on the center; Spencer's is a little chipped, a sign of age and permanence, Jon assumes, and says Dr. S. Smith, Gemologist.

"Doctor?" Jon echoes as Spencer gropes for his keys.

"Got my degree from Columbia," Spencer says with a momentary quirk of a smile. "Courtesy of Tom Conrad, the admissions counselor."

Tom Conrad is one of Jon's oldest and best friends and an expert forger. Jon stifles a laugh behind his palm and follows Spencer through the door and into the office beyond.

It's small, but Jon imagines in a building as old as the one that houses the museum, there isn't an overabundance of sprawling executive suites to be had. There's a on old desk, a couple bookshelves and a filing cabinet, all compulsively neat.

"Can I skip the grand tour?" Spencer asks, closing the door and folding his arms across his chest.

Jon ignores him, crossing the few steps to a shelf with a series of smaller gems displayed in a straight row. One of them, a ruby about the size of the tip of Jon's finger, seems vaguely and oddly familiar. He brushes his thumb over it and looks over his shoulder, pinning his gaze on Spencer. "Is this. Is this one of the St. Petersburg rubies?"

Spencer burns red. "I had it recut?"

St. Petersburg was the first job they ever did on their own, just the pair of them, not as backup for someone older and more experienced. It was a series of small disasters; overly watchful guards, a tricky alarm system, an unforeseen lock, and Jon tripping over a piece of lint or some shit and ending up spraining his ankle as they made their getaway.

"I thought we were going to die on that job," Jon says with a half grin, stepping back and leaning against Spencer's desk. "I thought we were going to die in Russia and my mother would have to pay to have my body brought back to the states."

"I didn't think we were going to die," Spencer counters, taking a step closer. "I thought we were going to get caught and then Pete would kill us himself."

They both laugh and Jon ignores the little spread of warmth through his chest. Fuck it all, he doesn't know what the right thing to do anymore is. There's no picture of Ryland on Spencer's desk, but Spencer has really never been the sentimental type.

Spencer's looking at his hand, flexing his fingers so the light from the overhead glints and bounces off his ring.

Jon sighs and shakes his head. "Why are you doing this job?"

"I." Spencer looks up. "You asked me."

"You didn't have to say yes," Jon counters. "You could very well have said no."

Spencer rolls his shoulders in a shrug, setting his jaw and not looking at Jon. "Look, I love my life. I love my job and Ryland and our house and this, this existence I have. No midnight flights and no Pete's code and people don't shoot at me and I don't always have to be aware of the fact that I'm a fugitive. I get to be visible, Jon."

"Fuck." Jon winces. "Spence, you were always fucking visible."

"Yeah. I don't know."

Spencer shoulders tighten and, no, if this is the last Jon is ever going to get to speak to Spencer, he's not going let things be left like that.

"Look at me," Jon says, pushing himself off the desk and wrapping his hands around Spencer's shoulders.

Spencer looks up.

Jon has very possibly always had a thing about Spencer's eyes. It's cliche, like a romance novel or a bad poem, but it's true and Jon's stomach starts turning the same stupid somersaults it did the first time they ever met.

"Goddamnit," Spencer exhales.

This kiss, this one is expected.

*

Jon has a bag he takes with him on every job. It's compact, settling right on his shoulders like a schoolbag, if kids in uniforms ever took guns with them to class.

He meets Spencer in a coffee shop down the street from his apartment, and isn't surprised as he should be that Spencer is dressed almost exactly the same way he is; sweatpants, dark, but not black and a worn hoodie Jon's fairly certain used to belong to him.

He doesn't look like a cat burglar, he doesn't look like an anything burglar, he looks like a college kid, maybe, studying for finals, tired and irritable, and he has a bag too, slimmer, but similar to Jon's as well.

He ducks his head as Jon gets closer, and his cheeks are pink by the time their eyes meet. "There are some things about a job that you never forget."

"Head-to-toe black is never the way to go," he responds, signaling to the bored looking kid behind the counter that he's ready to order.

He can't help looking at Spencer, but then, he's never been able to. His nails are bitten down to the quick, cuticles bloody, and that detail is new.

"Hey," he says, surprising the both of them. Spencer's chugging down his coffee like someone is chasing him. Maybe he thinks they are, maybe they will be. Jon's never been less sure about a job in his life, and he's had some close ones. "Hey, if you want to get out of this? If you want to stay here, you can. I won't hold it against you, and your boyfriend will probably be really grateful." Spencer opens his mouth, probably to correct Jon on what Ryland's status really is. "I did some research, Spence, c'mon, you didn't actually think you could hide the fact that Ryland's position at the museum depends on the success of this exhibition, did you?"

Spencer stiffens, and Jon doesn't blame him. "It's not like that," he says, and Jon winces at the tone of his voice.

"What's it like, then? Why the hell did you say yes, Spence?" Jon doesn't mean for his voice to sound so cold, but he can't help the way the words come out. "Why the hell would you say yes when you knew you couldn't follow through, not if you didn't want your perfect life to fall apart?"

Spencer closes his eyes, and his grip on his mug tightens. "I didn't," he stops to breathe, and Jon takes the opportunity to look at him, the sweep of his lashes against his lightly freckled cheek, the beauty in his mouth, the curve of his lips. "Do you really think we could do it?" He doesn't sound wistful, he sounds tired.

Jon nods. He's spent the last ten years not lying to Spencer, even if Spencer wasn't in his life for a few of them. "I think we can do anything, Spence. We've broken into harder places, stolen bigger things. I think you have to want to, I think you have to need to know the risk you're going to take, but yeah." He looks up, and Spencer's staring at him. "Yeah, I think we could."

Spencer nods, and takes another sip from his cup, even though Jon's almost positive there's no coffee left. He signals to the kid behind the counter again.

"I don't," he stops and closes his eyes, and in all the time Jon's known him, he's never seen him like this, never so rattled. "I don't think I can, Jon. Not like this. Not to him."

Jon nods, and doesn't drink his coffee. He slaps a ten on the table, and leaves without another word.

*

It's not anger Jon feels as he rides the L back to his neighborhood, as he walks back to his building, as he climbs the stairs to his floor. No, it's not anger or sadness or betrayal or any of the things he knows logically should be thrumming and seething underneath his skin. He keeps his hands tucked in his pocket and his head ducked down and he feels nothing.

Dylan's laying curled up on top of his laptop when Jon pushes through the front door, closing it with a soft bang that echoes in the quiet dark of the room. He lifts his head and meows softly, flicking his tail, until he sees it's only Jon and sets it back down.

Jon doesn't turn on any of the lights.

Calmly, he walks into his bedroom and opens his bag, setting it on the bed as he strips out his equipment and puts it back in the hidden space at the back of his closet. His instruments gleam in the faint light filtering in through the windows that the city provides, stained in the hues of orange and red.

He used to, in a repeating fit of sentimentality, kiss each one before he out them away, but not tonight.

Calmly, he strips off his sweats and tee shirt and hoodie. He folds the pants and sets them in the middle drawer of his dresser, on top of a small pile of similar pairs. The tee shirt is neatly hung in the closet, back on the same hanger he pulled it off of when he dressed.

The hoodie he tosses into the laundry basket. He spilled coffee on the cuff.

Calmly, Jon walks back into the living room and looks around, at the specs still sitting on the kitchen table, covered in lines of notes in Spencer's favored blue pen and neat scrawl. There are coffee mugs scattered everywhere, on the table and the counter, on the fucking coffee table pressing up against Jon's shins.

Pathetically, Jon knows which ones were his and which were Spencer's, and the few that they both took drinks out of when the task of brewing another pot seemed entirely too insurmountable.

Calmly, Jon picks up one of the mugs and hurls it against the far wall as hard as he fucking can. It explodes into shards of red pottery, radiated outward in a spray that leaves pieces laying broken beyond any chance of being fixed.

"He's gone," Jon murmurs, staring at the palm of his hand. "I lost him."

In that moment, there aren't words for what Jon feels and, even if he could manage to construct the right sentences, there isn't anyone to listen.

Jon stumbles back down the hallway to his bedroom and pitches himself into bed. He's shaking, but not crying, gasping out breaths that fall dangerously close to dry sobs and Jon can't, can't, cope with this. He crawls beneath the blankets, chosen by Spencer once upon a time, and pulls them over his head.

It's pathetic, a regression to second grade and not wanting to go to school, but it's all he can do and somehow he manages to fall asleep.

He spends two days that way.

Pete calls the next morning and it's only because Jon can only stand hearing that fucking song so many times six inches from his head than he grabs his phone and flips it open. "What?"

"What happened?" Pete's voice is tense and taunt, unusually serious for Pete, who always seems to treat the gravity of what he does with a necessary amount of levity. "What the fuck happened, Jon? Spencer calls me last night, sounding like someone fucking kicked his puppy, and told me shit went down and the job wasn't going to happen and then you didn't fucking call me at all. What the fuck, Walker."

Jon stares at his ceiling, at the fan turning lazy, ineffectual circles against the off white paint. There are cobwebs caught between the blades and he can remember Spencer standing in the middle of the mattress with a fucking broom, cleaning them off.

"He picked the straight life," Jon says, flat. "Couldn't do it."

There's a prolonged beat of silence with only the sound of Pete breathing in and out. Jon counts to three, one mississippi two mississippi three mississippi. "I'm sorry," Pete finally says and the bitch of it is that he sounds genuinely regretful.

Jon hangs up.

People call the next day, Travis a few times, and even Tom, despite that fact that last Jon knew, he was somewhere in Asia and on a completely opposite timezone. Jon appreciates the dedication, but accepting Tom's awkward brand of sympathy and support is a task in and of itself and he can't. Maybe later, but not now.

Eventually Dylan comes wandering in, leaping on the bed to curl up in a little ball batted up against Jon's hip. He's glad he invested in the little bowl that self feeds for up to week, selfish as that makes him feel. Dylan purrs like a motor and Jon falls back asleep.

When he wakes up again, the someone is ringing the fucking doorbell and Dylan is crouched on his chest, licking his nose.

"Knock it off," Jon slurs, voice thick with sleep. "M'not fuckin' answering."

Dylan meows.

"You aren't that smart," Jon says, reluctantly cracking his eyes open. Dylan's staring at him, for more pointedly than a damn cat should be able to. "Stop it. I'm not getting up."

It's stupid, but Jon would swear his cat gives him a look.

A look that says, "Jon Walker, you've been hiding in your fucking bed for two days like some kind of swooning Victorian lady and, dude, seriously, you are an international jewel thief, this has got to stop. Grow a pair, let 'em drop, and get the fuck up."

"I hate you," Jon grumbles, he pushes back the sheets and stumbles to his feet.

The doorbell rings again, almost hesitantly, and Jon yawns. It's dark outside the windows and it's more than a little pathetic, he thinks, that he doesn't honestly know whether it's been two days since the job or three.

He doesn't bother checking the peephole. He keeps his address as unknown as he can; the only people who have it that would visit with the sun down are Pete, 'Trick, Jon, and Travis. Annoyed and still feeling like there's some kind of spike jabbed through his chest, he fumbles with the lock and yanks the door open. "What?"

Spencer's standing on the doorstep.

He's not wearing his ring.

Spencer's standing on the doorstep in rumpled suit pants and a button down with the sleeves haphazardly shoved up. There's a bulging duffel bag slung over his shoulder and he's got their dog -- his dog, Banta, on a leash, sitting patiently at his heels.

His eyes are red rimmed and he's not wearing his ring.

"I'm not marrying Ryland," Spencer blurts out, spots of hectic color appearing high on his cheek. "I'm not. And I don't. I don't have anywhere else to go and I just kind of ended up here and I'll leave if you want me to, I will. I just."

Jon blinks hard and blinks again. He has to be dreaming. There's no way.

"What?" Jon shakes his head. "What are. What happened?"

Spencer huffs out a laugh and closes his eyes. "Ryland. He came home and he was in such a good mood and he asked how I would feel about not having a wedding at all and just going and getting married at the courthouse tomorrow. You know, fuck convention and normality and the the big to do and just get it done. And I wanted to say yes. I. I tried to say yes, but I felt like I was going to be sick and I couldn't and I left and here I am."

"Why?" Jon asks, fingers tight around the door frame.

He can feel some desperate and almost painfully hopeful slamming against his ribs and he hates it. He hates it more than he can probably say, if only because it makes him want.

"Because." Spencer shakes his head and laughs. He sounds hysterical and maybe he is. "Because I never fucking fell out of love with you. I tried so hard, so stupidly hard, and I couldn't. I can't. I. I love you."

Jon can't breathe. "You. You love me?"

Spencer nods, eyes going bright again. "Always have, always will, Jon. Jesus, I went stupid for you the first time I saw you and I know now that's never going to change."

For the span of a heartbeat Jon can feel, they stare at each other. Spencer looking like he's expecting to be turned away and then, in a moment Jon knows he will never ever forget (however romance novel that sounds, even in his own head), he throws his arms around Spencer's neck and kisses him, hard and sloppy and desperate and three years worth of want.

It's technically one of the worst kisses Jon has ever had; their teeth click and Banta gets caught between their legs and the weight of Spencer's bag alone makes them tip over, but he wouldn't change it for the world.

"I love you," Jon says on the exhale, awed and thrilled and existing in a place he never thought he would get to be in again.

"I love you," Spencer says, when they pull apart. "God. I love you. I love you."

Jon laces his fingers in Spencer's. "Come inside."


End file.
